Spiral For Three
by kawaiisuzu
Summary: In those days, it wasn't a proud thing. To be a kunoichi, or an Uzumaki. [Mito-centric, Founders-verse] [MadaraxMito, HashiramaxMito]
1. Downward Spiral

_Title: Spiral For Three_

_Extended Summary: In those days, it isn't a proud thing to be a kunoichi, or an Uzumaki. Mito is both, and learns that the number of men a kunoichi kills for the sake of one man does not relate to how much she loves him. _

_Pairing: Madara x Mito, Hashirama x Mito_

_Disclaimer: I don't own Kishimoto's Naruto. Cry me a river (disclaim, Justin Timberlake).  
_

_Warnings: Heed T, or PG-13 guide. Darker themes, and mentions of physical intimacy. Nothing remotely direct here. Ratings may change.  
_

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**.**

**Part I**

**. The**

**Downward .  
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**Spiral**

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_The Warring States Era, Sengoku Jidai - Year 146  
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_Average shinobi lifespan, thirty years_

_Average kunoichi lifespan, twenty-two years_

_Uzumaki clan, twenty-four male adult members_

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"Your leg goes over his side," he explained. "Like this."

The young man stretched a lean, scarred calve over the folded pillows, which the students could only assume represented a human being. He would demonstrate further, but he was not paid for the lesson, and it was admittedly awkward as the only male in the room, role-playing a female, teaching "intimate" positions to a room full of pubescent girls who learned only so they could kill many men later on.

At twenty, Uzumaki Tatsuya was practically ancient for a shinobi. His aged-ness meant he was the authority figure with the new ninja on all things secretive and just a bit scandalous. Tatsuya taught at the little shack that serves as Whirlpool Country's finest and only schoolhouse for kunoichi, mostly because the older, actual kunoichi were all off on assassination and espionage missions.

"And then you twist. Like so."

The twenty-year old licked his lips nervously as he scanned over the audience for their reactions. Scrunched up faces and blinking eyes peered back.

That wasn't all. Nestled at the back of the sea of grubby-faced urchins was the student furthest from the goal of becoming a polished assassin. A bit of drool dribbled from the corner of chapped lips, as the bright-haired, sentient form of Uzumaki Mito dozed off in the middle of Tatsuya-sensei's demonstration of the most important part of seducing a client.

He'd need to speak to her after class, he thought wearily, sighing right before he skewered the pillow with a small sharp dagger tucked under his sleeve. This never failed to elicit a chorus of soft 'ughs' from the girls nearing thirteen, and nervous giggles from the younger ones on reserve for taking kunoichi missions.

So, after the rest of the children piled outside to practice throwing shuriken, Mito was called to Tatsuya's teacher's desk (a large plank of molding driftwood) to talk.

"Was the lesson not to your liking?"

"It was okay." Mito brushed her thick hanks of shocking red hair away from her thin, white face. She could grow up to be very pretty, Tatsuya thought, if only she put in the effort. Of course, good looks were just as good as a shorter-life sentence, since the pretty ones inevitably burned out their looks and usefulness faster. And Uzumaki Mito, with her petite build and natural, feminine reticence, would be in high demand indeed.

He held in a sigh, and tried again. "Your father will not be pleased to know you were dozing today, through the entire lesson. These are kunoichi standard skills. You'll need to know them."

"_I_ won't be doing those things," she informed him matter-of-factly. At nine years of age, Mito's sweet, clear voice was nevertheless laced with the bearings of the clan leader's daughter, firm and confident.

"I'll have an arranged marriage, since it is custom. There's no romance necessary in that, Cousin Tatsuya."

Her cousin and teacher had only heard of the eerie precociousness of the youngest daughter of the clan chief. "Right, but you still need to make your husband love you. He won't listen to you or our clan's requests unless he loves you very, very much."

"And he _will_ love me if I—?" Mito made an explanatory gesture with her hands.

Despite being more than twice her age, Tatsuya flushed pink. "Yes. I suppose it couldn't hurt."

The girl stood silent, ruminating over this new piece of information. "Father will be satisfied, then."

Her father, the head of the Uzumaki Clan, was a stocky, short man with fingers like sausages that were nonetheless surprisingly dexterous at performing their clan's signature fuin seals. Tatsuya was secretly terrified of Kushina's father and his Uncle, although they were technically only related by blood through Tatsuya's late Aunt, the clan leader's wife and Mito's mother. The man was loud in public, but in private, had a shrewd sense of justice and retribution. Aunt Sayuri gave birth to three boys and Mito (all resembling her side of the family) before passing away from lung disease. In the Uzumaki clan, and also many of the other (even the more illustrious Senju and Uchiha) shinobi clans, dying due to disease or hunger was considered a waste and disgrace. For that reason, the leader, Koumizu Uzumaki, rarely mentioned his deceased wife.

"True," Tatsuya replied. "I guess."

Mito scrunched up her small nose, twisted her lips in thought, and Tatsuya felt almost as if she were just a young girl again. Almost.

"Then that means I should practice." There was no tremble, no waver in her words.

She looked up, eyes big, her imploring expression so perfect Tatsuya thought she should be the one giving lessons, not him.

"How do I practice, Tatsuya-sensei?" Mito asked in her sweet clear voice.

"_With whom_ do I practice?" Her small pale hand moved to brush Tatsuya's sleeve, only to elicit a jerky flinch from her cousin.

"I… well…"

And then Mito smiled, a small gentle upturning of her chapped, pink lips.

"Cousin."

The look in her eyes as if she'd won an amusing game.

"Will you tell Father I slept in class today?"

It wasn't a question.

Her hand was still poised in the air, waiting to brush against him again.

"No," he murmured quickly, hastily. "No, I won't."

"Good," she nodded, and the small smile disappeared, only to be replaced by a hard, piercing look Tatsuya had only seen on the most experienced kunoichi. She was the picture of poise. "I thank you."

Tatsuya watched Mito's petite form walk outside to join the children throwing darts at wooden targets. And then he turned back to his desk to write a recommendation that Uzumaki Mito, besides basic physical and chakra training, need not attend any more kunoichi classes.

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_Sengoku Jidai - Year 149  
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_Average shinobi lifespan, twenty-nine years_

_Average kunoichi lifespan, eighteen years_

_Uzumaki clan, twenty-six male adult members_

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Four years later, Mito was plunged into the adult world, if only through perverse chance, she thought. Either that, or fate had a strange way of playing with people, because Mito has been in this room before, at this gold-lacquered table, staring across to a pair of slit, molten gold eyes.

Somewhere in her dreams. Maybe.

She knew this man was important. Important in the world outside _her _world of the small Uzumaki camp, and thus important to her father and the clan's future.

But when he spoke, his name meant nothing to her.

The cold sound, not like the growl she expected, fell dead-dead-dead against the floor, never reaching her ears. All she could think about was what would be for dinner tonight, because the gnawing in her stomach (or was it a bit higher in her chest?) was growing insistent, pressing at her brain to think of some solution—at home, it would be fish or burdock or gritty rice.

She opened her hands to accept the presentation of her betrothal gift, and noted the raw pink of her nail beds, brushed so fiercely by her nursemaid that the ten had bled years of dirt and kunai grease the night before. At least that regimen finally did the trick—her nursemaid had never looked so proud.

The _yui-no_ gift slid toward her, a thousand lewd promises tucked in silk thread and incense.

"I humbly accept," Mito murmured, a liar and a kunoichi, though the two terms were redundant through and through.

Her fiancé gazed unsmilingly at her, appraising her every tuck and curve. Mito knew that every feature was beautiful. He made a soft sound, to indicate her physique was pleasing to him. Underneath the glamour of _henge no jutsu_, her chakra pulsed, smoothing soft curves over skinny knees and jutting hipbones.

At thirteen, Uzumaki Mito knew how to fake being seventeen.

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It was never easy to tell whether or not she would need to "leave" her husband in a few hours or a few days.

It didn't matter. Mito followed her father's instruction. She never let them have her, any part of her—not physical, not emotional. What she was good at, she discovered, was satisfying their vanity, by curtseying and blushing and pouring tea at all the right times, and, yes, lingering eyes and rouged lips as well. There was no usage fee for looking.

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_Sengoku Jidai - Year 149  
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_Autumn_

_Notable Skirmishes, Fire Country Warlords vs Whirlpool Country Daimyo_

_Water Country Civil Conflict_

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Exactly two weeks after their vows, she disposed of her first man (her fake-husband that tried to touch her two times) because her father had told her three days into the marriage that Mito had far better options (being beautiful like her mother), but it was true that she had better have some practice beforehand.

Two months later, her father sent her as backup for her second eldest brother.

Uzumaki Keito was out in the fringes of Fire Country, with a rag-tag band of small allied clans, trying to claim land for the Whirlpool _Daimyo_ Lord. Rumors spread that the Fire Country's own most powerful warlords had pooled their money and sought the expensive aid of the Uchiha clan, whose Sharingan eyes struck fear into a good sixty percent of the allies, destroying their morale and breaking their ranks.

"You'll go, Mito. Know that if we are victorious, the Daimyo has promised to make the Uzumaki clan chief among his forces, with a prosperous village of our own." Her father smiled. He rarely smiled, not now, with war and land and power to be won. Mito felt her heart squeeze in fright and hope.

"We will be like royalty, and you will be a true princess."

Mito wanted her father to be pleased, and, secretly, she decided that she rather liked the idea of being a princess.

The old stories her mother had told her of the small, nameless island countries on the great ocean had princesses in them. Their hair was always long and wavy. And though there was absolutely no hope of Mito's sheet-straight hair ever cascading down in glorious waves, she decided she would at least grow it long, one, because her brothers had always teased her that it was not right to have hair shorter than the one she'll marry, and two, because having princess hair would at least be a concrete step toward the goal.

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_Sengoku Jidai - Year 149  
_

_Winter_

_Uchiha Casualty Count, five men, two women  
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_Uzumaki Casualty Count, sixteen men, one woman_

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_._

The foreign general put his hands under her shirt, far more than any other had done, and Mito saw red-red-red, before a swift wind and the seeping wetness of blood—not her own—brought her back to reality.

The boy who killed her man had dark eyes and dark hair.

He also had a dark smile, full of promises that Mito did not think he would keep to any _mere woman_. Because that was exactly how he looked at her, as she tugged her clothes straight and flushed for the first time. He looked, but didn't see.

And to Mito, he was a mystery.

She had never seen her brothers at this age, as they were whisked away for war far before she could remember. She spent her days only with gurgling baby Uzumaki boys, and then she spent the more recent ones with lecherous old men.

It wasn't like he was a total mystery. She could guess—he, for one, looked like an Uchiha, through and through. And if the stubborn hair did not give it away, his arrogance and fierce protectiveness of his younger brother did. But one couldn't be sure, and she prayed that it wouldn't matter.

"I have brothers, too," Mito blurted. It was absurd, seeking out and then talking to the enemy. But she did not want to stop, because these sorts of battles were boring and, after the general's death, she was only here as an extra pair of hands, not as a kunoichi.

The boy cocked a dark eyebrow at Mito. It seemed to say 'So?'

"I mean," Mito said in her most careful, light (but not sweet. She had a gut feeling this boy would not be like her ex-husbands) tone. "That I think I can understand, how your younger brother feels about you."

This actually elicited a guffaw from the Uchiha, who laughed for a few seconds straight before stuffing his hands in his pockets and chucking a rock across the river. Correction. Into the river. The rock sank right away.

"I want to change some stuff about shinobi," he said, after his ears stopped flushing bright red.

To Mito, he might as well have said, 'I want to change the entire fucking world.' Then, she remembered.

"What about kunoichi?" Mito demanded, and immediately felt shocked at her own impertinence.

"Yeah, I guess I'll change that, too." He didn't glance back to her, focused on skipping another rock over the river.

"Promise?"

Uchiha Madara—for that was what Mito would later learn his name to be—_did_ turn back to stare at her, really _see_, this time.

He smiled his brooding smile. "Don't your older brothers keep their promises?"

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_Sengoku Jidai - Year 152  
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_Uzumaki Clan, thirteen total male members  
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_Notable Skirmishes, Uchiha vs Senju, without political instruction_

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The strange thing about love-making between two people was that making love was literally the most selfish thing Mito had ever seen men do. But at sixteen, her father decided it was finally time for her to learn, _properly_. So he wed her off to someone safe—a soft-spoken sword smith on the edge of their small, tenuously-growing village.

The humble man had no clue who she was, how much the Daimyo liked her, how the Daimyo's son looked at her. Mito found that she liked the secrecy. It was like a game. But when he asked if he could touch her, Mito flinched away before eventually acquiescing to his soft caresses and tentative kisses. He kissed like a bird.

Still, that was better than kissing like a fish. The general had kissed like a dying fish, before _actually_ dying on that day almost three years ago. Mito found her thoughts wandering to that eventful evening ever so often, and she sometimes imagined it was a different mouth pressed against hers, just for fun. This love business was a whole lot more bearable when she imagined brooding lips pressed in an arrogant smile against the column of her milk-white throat.

And so her surprise was laced with guilty pleasure when familiar yet unfamiliar spinning red eyes awakened her in the middle of the night.

The dark nodes spun in perfect spirals, like obsidian rocks skipping over a molten lava surface.

"Uchiha," she breathed.

"Madara," he replied.

Mito had no chance to scream or immobilize the intruder with wires of chakra before he disappeared into the night, leaving only a soft-spoken sword smith's bloody guts spilled onto the floor. That, and one strangely soured princess heart.

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_Sengoku Jidai - Year 154  
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_Year's End_

_Uzumaki Clan, twenty-one total male members_

_Kunoichi casualties, fourteen members_

_Kunoichi remaining, six total members, three active members_

_Notable Skirmishes, Uchiha vs Senju, ongoing  
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After the bloodshed, there was finally a lull in missions for Mito and many other ninja. It wasn't peace, but rather a bitter stalemate between Uchiha and Senju. Other clans hovered cautiously on the sidelines, some in fear, others waiting for a chance to nip at the two great clans' heels.

The Uzumaki clan belonged to the latter group. And in truth, all Mito wanted to do was wait for the chance to tear the heel off the Uchiha clan, if she ever got the chance. Change the world her arse. Madara had done no such thing. Two of Mito's brothers and twenty Uzumaki kinsmen had died in battle six months ago, embroiled in a mission ambushed by just four Uchiha Sharingan-wielders. And the sword smith… he was innocent and defenseless with his shy, bird-like touches.

Her father, wounded gravely in spirit by the loss of his first and second-born, called her to his bedside.

"Mito, the only consolation I take from all of this is that you are still untouched." Father's head bobbed on his now too-thin neck. "Your maidenhood is valuable beyond compare in this day and age. I don't know what I was thinking… giving you to that…"

With growing alarm, Mito realized that her father was apologizing.

"I would do anything you ask. I would kill for you, Father," she said, and she meant it.

She knew how much he'd lost when he lost Mother. And now their family, his soul, was halved.

Uzumaki Koumizu shook his graying head. "You are eighteen now, Mito. When you were sixteen, I had you go to that sword smith only because he was the key to the _fuin no jutsu_'s success in battle. He was the one to discover a metal that was compatible with our seal. But he was working on something even better, before he died. I want you to go back and get the sample of that new metal."

Mito felt her fingertips go cold.

"Father, what are you saying?"

"He told me he desired you long ago, Mito. If it's you, it will be fine to go back to his shop, and-"

"—N-No, what you said... before that…" Red hair fell over her eyes, and she fought the urge to bolt from her chair. All she saw was red-red-red, dead-dead-dead. Spilled guts and smooth straight hair and betraying lips and hearts.

She'd always thought her father had chosen the man for his kind gentleness, that Uzumaki Koumizu had painstakingly chosen a trusted man who would treat her well. But they'd both lied. Just when had her Father started lying?

The clan leader's gaze was unfocused, looking at his daughter but not seeing, completely blind to her shaking form. "Our clan would be invincible. The Daimyo would have given me a noble title. But above all, he promised to build Sayuri a proper tombstone. Just think! Sayuri…"

Her father repeated her mother's name a few times, but Mito did not stay to hear. Mito's legs carried her out of the chamber, fast as she could go. She retched the nonexistent contents of her stomach right outside the door.

The world was spiraling, spiraling like red, arrogant eyes.

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To be continued

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_Quick note about the title: "Spiral For Three". Three (well, sort of only two) reasons for the "Three" motif. This was originally meant as a three-shot, but we'll see. There's also three main protagonists (though Madara is more of an antihero). Finally, the Sharingan commas also come in three, in the original form._

_Note on the plot: This is in no way meant to moralize the actions of that age-I think Kishimoto writes his bit for a reason. I just "feminized" it. It always struck me as pretty interesting how alliances are formed and dissolved throughout history. Clan politics and personal relationships balance on a fine wire. I think Mito would naturally be drawn to someone like Madara, who holds power and promise-but also resent him for following the pattern of war and assassination. Of course, the reason why Madara did kill the sword smith was because he was manufacturing weaponry to assist another clan. Mito, of course, thinks that the man was an innocent bystander... until her Father let slip the fact that he, in a way, sold her. _

_This chapter was pretty doom and gloom. It gets better, promise. I'm excited to introduce Hashirama.  
_

_Review?_


	2. Forward Spiral

_Warnings: Heed T, or PG-13 guide. Darker themes.  
_

_Mild hints of spoilers for Naruto founders' flashback chapters. Canon-compliant._

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**Part II**

**. The**

**Forward .  
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**Spiral**

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Fuinjutsu was good not just for steel and stone. Reworking the seals meant being able to seal many more things—like raw chakra. This epiphany led to months searching for the right books and scholars' literature, the knowledge that her predecessors had lost*, the classical education that her father had scorned, the information that Mito realized she could only get at the Daimyo's court. The former Daimyo's son had married, with two concubines, but that did not mean he did not still burn with lust for Mito.

She let his lingering gaze caress her back so long as her face was buried in a newly purchased scroll.

At court, she turned her other men's secrets into her own. These secrets she turned into power. She turned this power into chakra. Mito deposited her chakra into a small diamond crest* on her forehead.

Fathomless. Bottomless.

Mito would not die in battle, and the Uzumaki clan would not be forgotten.

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The world was full of irony, Mito discovered at nineteen.

After brutal years of twisting arms and legs and beards, making business deals with numerous other shinobi clans, numerous merchant funders, legions of countryside farmers and fishermen, Uzumaki Koumizu passed away and left behind the only legacy that still loved him and his memory—Whirlpool Village.

Mito's surviving brother, the youngest and always physically weakest of her three, inherited the title of clan leader—a title that, after Uzumaki Koumizu's death, actually carried influence beyond their little pureblood Uzumaki clan.

Uzumaki Kenka was smart and frighteningly practical, but he was not especially good at fuinjutsu. He had neither the old clan leader's charisma, nor his daughter's unique chakra signature and popularity among their Daimyo supporters.

Mito loved her brother with the same love she had once loved her father, with a fierce, forced loyalty that ran thicker than water and could only be proven with blood. She loved enough to kill for him. _Was that love?_

Anyhow, Kenka hated her.

(She knew that.)

He also became the one to free her.

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Her brother had not spoken of any marriage prospects since their father's death. It seemed like he was just now becoming aware of his sister's usefulness. Or he was waiting for the right moment. Mito would bet her right hand on the latter.

"His name is Hashirama. Sources tell me he will be a good match. But before any formal arrangement, you will want to meet him, first."

Mito considered the arrangement. This was fine. Six of her other good matches had already turned out to be good targets.

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Her late nursemaid's freckle-faced, wide-eyed niece took out the two softly coiled buns and brushed out Mito's smooth, straight scarlet hair by candlelight. The unspoken weight of the Whirlpool princess' last day in the Uzumaki clanhead's house settled over the room.

"Mito-sama…"

"Call me onee-san*. Mito-sama makes me sound old," Mito objected, voice curt with unnamed emotion, as she tried to not look into the eyes of the little girl who wanted to _be_ her. A brutal, weeping part of Mito wanted to slap the adoring expression off of the girl. There was no reason to ever want such a thing.

"Mito-sa—Mito-_onee_-sama… are you sad to leave?"

"No. The world is an exciting place."

She was surprised by the amount of truth in her impromptu reply. It had been meant only as a way to appease the fears of a young girl who had not yet been thrust into the shinobi world. Uzu Village, despite being poor, was now a proper haven. It required fewer sacrifices from its inhabitants.

"I'll miss you brushing my hair every night, though," Mito smiled, and, on a whim, activated the fuin seal on her sleeve to produce a shiny jade pendant. It was a gift from her late second husband. It would sell for a lot of money.

"For you and your family."

Truth be told, marrying her off to their Senju allies was the greatest compliment to her skill that her brother could pay her. This was a good way to send her far away, and build his own popularity among the Uzumaki clan and the new people who were settling in the village. She knew he felt threatened by her, a mere woman. This meant Mito was powerful. Mito searched herself and realized she was not scared. In fact, she was eager to leave for Fire Country.

(Not because the Senju were still at war with the Uchiha. Not because Mito's heart was, also.)

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Mito supposed she could do worse, but still… she was Whirlpool's _princess_, and all this guy could do was make crude wooden sculptures (which, by the way, did not sell well in this economy).

He was no mere merchant. In fact, he was a _terrible_ merchant, with no business sense and an uncanny ability for getting suckered into bad deals. So this was Senju Hashirama, dressed up as a wood carver peddling on weekends at the market square. The calluses on his hands and the lightness of his movements spoke of years of shinobi training. He was likely here for information as well—markets carried all the gossip and tidings of the region. No ninja could be _this_ simple.

In disguise herself, Mito sidled up to him in the market square and poked around for some answers, some defining traits, trying to read him. After one meeting, he gave her a first name. After three meetings, Mito had amassed a small collection of badly-carved wooden Buddhas, two of which he'd given her for free.

"Don't you have any other talents?" she asked him once, to which Hashirama surprised her completely by curling into fetal position and (crazy or not, she could have sworn…) summoning an actual _dark cloud_ to rain over his body.

Here was a different sort of mystery man.

Mito had no clue how to act around this particular sort, so she fumbled her way around his easygoing nature with just the right bit of her honest character. He seemed to put up with her practical cynicism, which came out at all the intervals where other customers (like middlemen peddlers) would cheat him of his products and end up taking home all his decent carvings for a pittance. If Mito had a coiled spring for a heart, she thought it would have burst from stress, for each time Hashirama's cluelessness at business caused him to earn not a single penny.

The best thing about Hashirama, Mito decided, would have to be that he was likely not hard to kill and make it look like an accident.

As a potential husband, Hashirama was not unattractive, really. He had smooth good looks. He had (and here Mito laughed at the irony, come back to bite her) dark hair and dark eyes. Yet, the Senju's smile was bright as the sun, in sharp contrast to that red-eyed boy long ago. The more times Mito saw Hashirama at Fire Country's small fledgling markets, peddling strange, many-armed figurines, squandering his earnings by gambling at the dice booth, arguing with his brother, Tobirama, who came along sometimes, the more Mito realized he was nothing like any man she'd met before.

It wasn't his niceness or pleasant demeanor. Plenty of people hid shrewd plans under those, and it was practically a kunoichi's first-day exam to put on a winning smile. If she had to pinpoint something, it would probably be the ease to which he gave her information.

(Only one man had ever come close—and that was only after he had disemboweled her first and only lover.)

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On their twenty-seventh meeting, Hashirama gave her something more valuable than a first name.

_He gave her his last name_. And it was a valuable one, too. One that Mito already knew, yes, but one that he had no means to know that she knew. Here, it was the intention that counted. A shinobi that gave his last name was either a moron or a friend. A friend. Now that was one thing Mito felt uneasy about; the closest thing to friends she'd had growing up had been the Uzumaki girl cousins who'd tried to bribe Mito, the clan head's daughter, for extra food and rope. Non-Uzumaki members were not friends. _Men_ were not friends.

"I'm actually Senju Hashirama," he grinned. "We meet here all the time, and you help me sell my sculptures, so I thought you had the right to know. And you are?"

"Tsunade* Mito," Mito laughed lightly. "A nobody. Your name, however… I think Senju sounds familiar?"

If he caught her half-truth, he didn't show it. "Your name is beautiful," Hashirama grinned. "Does your family live near the coast?"

"You could say that. We were poor, but we could somehow feed ourselves because of the ocean," Mito kept her voice light, amiable. "I can't say I like the taste of fish anymore, though. That's why I moved out here."

Hashirama looked thoughtful. "I see."

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Unlike her assignments as a teenager, Mito didn't visit the Uzumaki clan leader anymore. Not that she needed to, in order to receive her assignments. In a short year's time, the entire clan now had more than enough money to send carrier birds to deliver messages to their forces throughout the land. Mito herself was stationed in a market town near the heart of Fire Country, day by day learning more about the Senju, and Hashirama's family.

Hashirama was to become clan head, and sometimes she would catch hints of coded conversations from him and the thinly-disguised Senju Tobirama about their recent skirmishes with the Uchiha.

To be honest, Mito had allowed herself to be positioned only for the chance to get back at the latter clan. She could be patient.

One day, a swallow swooped from the sky and deposited a small note at the window of her small, rented shack.

"Come back" it read. "The Uchiha and Senju are going to war".

_And the Uzumaki are going to help the Senju. _

That was the unwritten conclusion hanging in the air.

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_It's not an alliance until someone dies. _

That was the age-old mantra spoken among shinobi*. No clan could be sure of the fealty of an ally until that ally was willing to lay down a life or take a life, because the price of one person's life was the worth of one person's trust. Because, when the shinobi in the front lines turned their faces away from their allies, bared their backs and went to battle, trust and the willingness to die by a stab in the back meant the same thing.

"That naive child of a clan head does not _understand_! The Uchiha must pay for their crimes to the Uzumaki." Kenka's fists clenched white, and Mito thought to herself that her brother was not like her father. Her father loved aggressively, passionately. Kenka hated aggressively, passionately.

"And yet, in the heat of battle, this Senju bastard refuses to kill Uchiha Madara! Can this alliance prosper with a damn pacifist as leader?"

Her brother made no move to continue. Kenka was angry, not stupid. He knew that the Senju were strong, and Senju Hashirama was the strongest. Strong shinobi could afford to be merciful. Somehow, it was a trait that none of the men in her family had ever possessed.

"Senju Hashirama is a gambler," Mito said impassively. She'd seen his obsession with dice. "He wants to grasp at a different future."

Hashirama was gambling on a ceasefire with the Uchiha, she knew. Mito wondered if the happy-go-lucky man knew that he was hurting others in the process. The Senju were hurting clans like the Uzumaki, who would follow the Senju to the grave with bonds of what Kenka thought was mutual hatred for the Uchiha.

Senju Hashirama was a gambler. Maybe he was better at it on the battlefield than with money.

And maybe he was not. Mito wondered when Hashirama would risk this alliance with the Uzumaki for something he felt was more valuable.

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.

.

They came back from battle with wounded men and dead women, more of them Uzumaki than Senju. That was not the Senju's fault, but her war-eager brother had led their clan far ahead in the charge, where as Hashirama had pulled back.

Mito came back physically unscathed, since her mission had been to watch the village in her brother's absence. However, she did return to Fire Country with a heavy heart for the future of the Uzumaki-Senju alliance.

Just when she thought things could not become worse, it was Tobirama who found her stash of kunai, sandwiched between her left-third drawer and a fake bottom panel. Apparently, he'd done his share of snooping in Mito's absence (apparently, it had only been Hashirama's presence that had stopped him from snooping before, but Hashirama had gone to battle as well).

Tobirama had actually been pragmatic and reported to his older brother first thing. And so, here stood Mito, in front of her rented house, with Hashirama, Senju clan heir and arguably the most powerful ninja alive, staring her in the face.

Hashirama actually laughed, before exclaiming, "So you are a foreign kunoichi after all!"

Mito felt another uncharacteristic bout of hysteria as she considered banging her head against the nearest sharp edge.

He seemed to read her expression in the split second that Mito's eyes flashed, defiant and beautiful, and another chuckle escaped his mouth.

Mito caught herself, and tried to reverse the damage.

"I don't know why you would think that," she hedged. She was about to spin her reverse psychology when Hashirama started laughing even more raucously, as if he found the whole thing hilariously funny. Whether it was bitter or absolutely insane laughter, she did not know.

"It's just, I don't know a single babe that hasn't gone into the kunoichi business! If it's _henge_, could they fix me up, too? I've been told I'm not very stylish. I mean, I used to have a bowl cut ahaha."

Mito considered running away. She also considered telling him that she was an Uzumaki. After all, they were allies? Hashirama probably kept an (awkward, strained) correspondence with her brother, but now that she was all but cut off from the family, Mito did not want to return in any way—even in just acknowledging her name.

"So what's your real name?" his question cut into her thoughts.

She could lie.

"Don't lie." Hashirama said right then, as if he could read her mind.

So what if she did.

"I know kunoichi and liars are, like, the same thing…" Hashirama continued. He grinned guiltily, as if he thought that he was insulting her. _As if he thought her feelings mattered_.

"…Everyone know that," he mused, brushing away an errant strand of ebony hair. Hashirama looked tired and hopeful. "But I'm trying to change that in my new village."

And Mito froze.

She'd heard this before.

She's heard this before, _damnit_.

"Uzumaki Mito."

It tumbled out before she knew it, like the first, fat raindrop in a hurricane that no one expected.

There. The truth.

And yet, Senju Hashirama's eyes were suddenly hard.

This was the first time she'd spoken truth to the man she was committed to marry, for the sake of another Uzumaki man she was committed to protect. Mito had thought (foolishly hoped) that he would forgive her for three months of lies.

"I suppose we'll be married, then," Hashirama murmured.

(As if he didn't want to marry a liar.)

And Mito realized, as the chill crept up her spine, she actually wanted this man's good opinion. Not as a Senju ally. Not as a tool for self-benefit. That scared her.

"I suppose we will," Mito echoed, her tongue tasting of acid.

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To be continued

_Note on Clans and Characters: _

_The Uzumaki and Senju clan are supposedly "really tight". In my fic, I had it so that Mito's father and Hashirama's father would have gotten along beautifully, sharing the same morals and goals. However, I think there can still be mutual distrust and hard times in their "alliance", which is why daughters are offered up in marriage. In monarchic Europe, marriage was not between just chummy-chummy lineages, but also between those that disliked each other, in hopes of building mutual gain and bonds for the future. This is the reasoning behind Mito's brother choosing Hashirama for her.  
_

_In case it wasn't clear, the relations between Senju and Uzumaki were strained at the time of Hashirama's ascent to clan-head because of the differences in how to treat the Uchiha. The Uzumaki clan hated the Uchiha, because they'd just nearly had their entire clan wiped out by Sharingan-users. There was also historical enmity between the Senju and Uchiha. Hashirama frustrates both his Senju father (deceased in this fic) and Mito's brother because of his relationship with Madara. _

_As for Mito, she doesn't know that Madara and Hashirama know each other. The reason she was called back home was to watch the village in Kenka's absence._

_Hashirama likes to gamble, since he recollects in NARUTO that he was the one who instilled that bad habit into Tsunade. Also, I figured I would make him a "sucker" of sorts, just like Tsunade, who was also bad with money. Hashirama is an interesting mix of serious and light-hearted, naive and stubborn, merciful and unforgiving. He puts himself and his "own" people on a higher standard of morality-that is why he would probably not want to choose a wife who was like Mito, who lied as a means to an end. _

_I get a bit irked when fanfics introduce the founders, Madara, Hashirama, and Mito... as saints or devils. I don't believe in portraying Mito as an angel of sorts, who Hashirama and Madara clamored to protect and love because she was so perfect and morally good in such a sinister age. _

_I actually think it would be a special tenacity and resilience, practicality and adaptiveness, which would make Mito so successful as a kunoichi. In this fic, at least, her wisdom and love are learned through hard life experiences and mistakes._

_Asteriks* Glossary_

_1. The knowledge that her predecessors had lost: just as in Japan's warring states era and any other period of civil war, there was a lot of culture and history that was lost in the process. In this setting, I have the Uzumaki clan under the leadership of dominant, militaristic and pragmatic male leaders much like Hashirama's Senju-Papa, as portrayed by Kishimoto. As for why there is so much fuin culture and the Uzu clan shrine later in the manga... I actually plan to have Mito reinstall this preservation of history. As you can see, she is a bright cookie, and is working to make fuinjutsu more powerful.  
_

_2. Mito's diamond-shaped crest: She has one in canon. It is unknown whether or not it does the same thing as Tsunade's, but I think it's fitting that, as a fuin/seal jutsu specialist with special chakra, she would have some functional use for the diamond. Generations of people mimic each other...  
_

_3. Tsunade, the name: A whimsical shout-out to Hashirama's granddaughter. Wouldn't it be funny if the name Tsunade was something Mito came up with? Also, TSUANDE means mooring rope. This explains why Hashirama thinks of the ocean, and fishing and boating.  
_

_4. Onee-san, -sama: I do not use Japanese in my fics unless they actually serve a purpose. Here, the honorifics are meant to imply the status and age of Mito, in comparison to the others in her clan. Her maidservant is technically a relative, but any younger girl can call an older girl "Onee-san", to mean "big sister". The "-Sama" suffix is meant to show reverence, usually in referral to a person of higher status, or someone much older and wiser.  
_

_5. __It's not an alliance until someone dies: I made this into a sort of shinobi catch phrase because this is the moral test that Madara pulls on Hashirama in their NARUTO battle. I figure there must have been some historical prevalence to Madara's idea.  
_


	3. Helix Spiral

_Suzu: woah... did we make it this far? :o  
_

* * *

**.**

**Part III**

**. The**

**Helix .  
**

**Spiral**

**.**

* * *

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A more naïve Mito—a five or seven year old her, perhaps—would have thought that _this_ was the fabled end of the road.

Once there was confrontation, there was truth—and from truth, came more confrontation until the inevitable conclusion where good trumps bad or bad trumps good came about (she'd never once in her life believed that good always won).

But the real world was more complicated. She and Senju Hashirama danced dizzying circles around each other, danced _spirals_, coming closer and closer towards the nexus of truth, only to jump back when something started to scrape, when they started to learn more about each other. It was painful because the dance was never-ending. It was painful because there was no end to the relationship—no signal from Kenka, nor her dead father, to cut off the alliance. At the heart of a dual-spiral, where one line encircling the other in forced cordialness and niceties, would the two lines ever meet? Could an arranged marriage make them meet?

Mito tested several alternatives. She had considered poisoning Hashirama only thrice in her life.

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.

The second time was when he explained the reason he'd told her his real name. At the time, she'd known him for almost a year, and had given up trying to keep anything about her own identity secret. But Hashirama never asked further than her Uzumaki allegiance.

"It's the code of conduct for shinobi to not tell others their last names. Or did you forget when you first told me?"

"I told you, I want to change the way things are," the Senju said, squinting hard at the small wooden peg in his hand. It was lunch time, and not many customers frequented the artisan stalls when they could be at the food booths. Hashirama whittled away another shaving with his small knife (Mito thought he should have just used a kunai. There was no need to keep up appearances anymore, but hey, why was the hypocrite talking?).

"I just think it's pretty miserable living in a world where kids have to fight and die all the time."

"Hm." Mito intoned. She wanted to slap him, but mere words of bravado did not incriminate a man.

"By the way, when's your birthday?" Hashirama asked out of the blue.

Mito blinked, and considered for a moment if this was a roundabout tactic of winning her favor. "The first day of spring."

His dark, warm eyes stared at her. Mito felt her stomach turn uncomfortably. "Why?"

"Oh, well, you're just kind of cold… so I figured you'd be a winter birthday or something."

She felt her brow wrinkle.

"As for the question itself," he continued blithely, "I wanted to give you a present. I mean, it's almost been a year since we first met. When I finish this piece, I'll give it to you."

"If you want." Mito was used to gifts. She told herself she was not touched. Besides, Hashirama's crude sculptures were… undesirable. That was putting it lightly. They were large, and clunky, and obnoxiously garish.

Hashirama fixed his gaze at his craft, blowing away a cloud of wood shavings from the peg, which fit comfortably in his fist. " "And then, I'll be able to say! Ha—told you I could make something small and cute, too!"

Mito's clear, ringing laugh, like a bell, startled Hashirama into shaving off a thumb.

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_Kenka, _

_The village is doing well, I trust. But this is not a letter for pleasantries. I require no more from you than the promise that the scrolls I send back with this letter with be kept among the clan with utmost care and secrecy. I wrote them recently. Yes, you may look at them. If you understand them, you will know how vital they are to protecting our livelihood as seal masters. If somewhat crude now, in the future, these arts will be not what destroys other armies, but what heals our own._

_You needn't be worried about the affairs of Fire Country. Senju Hashirama will not betray us, as you constantly nag. We are still useful to each other. He is not unkind, but shows me no social graces. It suits me fine._

_M. U._

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.

On a day that started like any other, Tobirama arrived at the door of _her_ shack and was laid on _her_ bed.

It would have been his deathbed, too.

"Tell me why you're here," Mito glared stonily at the intrusion of Hashirama, whose matted hair and sweat-drenched armor stunk of grime and other men's tears. The woman nudged at the prone body of the younger Senju brother. "Tell me why you brought him here."

"You are a healer," he puffed, wiping Tobirama's blood with Mito's coverlet.

Mito raised an eyebrow, trying to survey the damage while remembering the Uzumaki clan's own clashes with the Uchiha. "I'm not."

"The only reason I have my thumb in place is because you healed it in time."

"That doesn't make me a healer." She was in no mood to be amiable. This wasn't part of the unspoken contract. Her face was unmoving, cold and serene. "This isn't just a thumb," she informed him. "He's dying."

"I know you can." Hashirama's bangs were falling in raven hanks to his forehead as he pleaded. "The surgeon at the square's market moved away last week. I can't ask Sarutobi either—the clan is already furious with me for letting their heir be injured in battle. I have no right to ask them for help with Tobirama's condition."

'No _right_'? Mito scoffed internally. It was Tobirama who had outed her identity, never mind that she was going to tell it eventually. Mito hadn't forgotten this old grudge. If Hashirama was just a necessary evil in her life, then Tobirama was clearly evil itself. Had he not thought this through clearly, or was desperation clouding his mind?

Mito examined her fiance's pained, but hopeful, expression. She picked her words carefully, to make sure her words were like ice water.

"You have '_no right'_ to ask me, either."

For one brief instant, Senju Hashirama was livid, his eyes hard in anger and frustration, before he shook off his headband and ran a mud-covered hand through his hair.

"N-no. Indeed, I have no right to ask you, but I thought, I thought you might…"

"Do it out of the goodness of my heart? Do it because we're to be _wed_?" The last word, Mito nearly spat out. She tapped her chin and quirked her lips, in an effort to mask the heat that rushed to her eyes and temples.

"You are to be my wife." A whisper, almost a question.

"Yes. Not your slave."

His voice almost shouted. "I never said—"

"_But that is all I can ever be_," Mito's own voice rose several decibels, stern, laced with _something_ trying to ignore her own heart quavering, matching the tremulous breathing of the once powerful Senju Tobirama, who was on her bed, ready to die. "This healing procedure will hurt me as well. I can never love you nor your clan enough to do this," she continued.

"Love is a powerful emotion. Not many can spare it," he mused.

Hashirama had a strange look in his eye. It was like the hard edge of his brow disappeared, and something almost like sympathy creeped into his gaze.

And Mito _hated_ it.

Her throat suddenly burned like fire, and she found she could no more retort or drip verbal acidities in defense against that stare. More than anything else, the Senju had no right to look down on her. The future that the Uzumaki had fought tooth and nail for was not something a man spewing nonsense about tolerance and virtue (and hypocrisy) could understand.

"Leave me," she commanded, the tone of her voice actually making Senju Hashirama flinch.

"And leave your brother here. You can collect him in the morning, though you'd better start praying now that you'll collect more than just a body."

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.

.

Tobirama lived.

Something else lived too, between Mito and Hashirama.

It might even have been the start of a real relationship, if only **_he_** hadn't returned. _He _returned with the tidings of a village. A new village unlike any other in existence. A village hidden in the leaves, forged not by the bonds of kinship, but by the ties of alliance.

(Mito scoffed at the idea.)

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"Alliances are not strong enough, without blood kin. There will be infighting. It will never work," Mito said to her fiancé, for that was what Hashirama now wanted her to acknowledge him as. He looked at her with something like devotion, respect, affection.

"I will make it work."

He was not looking at her now. Senju Hashirama's jaw was set, and his brow stern and somehow regal as he peered over the fields that would become his new village. He looked like a god among shinobi, overlooking the red sunset over the plateau (it made Mito think: "just maybe…" but then she stopped herself). The wind blew his raven locks toward Mito, who stood only a foot behind him. He turned toward her (hair blowing into his face), unblinking, and took her hand into his own.

It was a warm hand. A merciful hand… and thus a strong hand.

"I will make it work, but you must help me." The faint pink on the Senju leader's cheeks mirrored the color of the sunset.

"I-I still have no right to ask you, but… but I _want_ you to be my wife. Please know this."

He stumbled over the words. (_'Just a man,'_ Mito realized, as if awakening from a genjutsu.)

Indeed, it was the most unappetizing proposition a husband-to-be had ever given her.

The proposition was devoid of golden halls and promises of wealth and power. The village Senju Hashirama was building had not a single building in it. Mito sincerely hoped Hashirama was hiring the construction team, because she'd seen his aesthetic sensibilities in _designing_ things with pieces of wood. Mito told herself she should just move back to Uzu village.

.

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(Mito scoffed, but she was piqued.)

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Under the heat of the sun, the days melted into weeks, into months. Mito knew peace, for the first time in her life. She knew peace in her solitude, because Hashirama was busy traveling, forming alliances and gathering much needed funds. She would have helped him, had not her pride stopped her at the last moment.

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"Mito! There's someone I want you to meet! An old friend of mine."

She jumped. He should stop sneaking up to her shack like that. Now that they were due for marriage, it was improper for him to enter and go from her bedroom at a whim.

"Can't you see I'm busy packing? Isn't it enough that you want me to move?" she frowned until Hashirama's bubbling exuberance turned into light embarrassment.

"A-ah. Okay, take your time," he back-pedaled. "Come by the village tomorrow night for supper, won't you? He'll be there. It's nothing grand, but we'll all eat around a fire with the carpenters and stone masons."

Mito rolled her eyes and did her best to look unenthused.

"I'm to be your esteemed wife, not some man with whom you pass around sake late at night. I'm not coming."

Really. He was just like a puppy sometimes.

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_Year 157_

_Clans of the Shinobi Alliance and Civilian Villagers break soil in their new home_

_Konohagakure is founded_

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The village construction was going at full-pace, and new, half-formed jungles of wood and cement were being stacked together across what would become the full-fledged village of Konohagakure. Under the light of the moon, the workers often toiled through the night… but on a moonless night like this, retired to their beds. Hashirama had long since left for the Sarutobi clans' tents, to shmooze and plan and, very likely, gamble.

And so, nothing, not even the moon, was here to witness one particular reunion.

Not that it mattered. For decades afterward, many, many times, Mito would tell herself it didn't matter.

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Mito stepped out from the concealment of the pillar, into the ring of stone that served as seating for the men over their repast. Mito's insides were burning, burning low like the flame. He was sitting around the edges of a soon-to-be-dead fire, his signature brooding expression magnified by the quivering shadow of the flames. She willed herself to be calm, and took a breath to steel herself.

"We meet again, Thief."

Just as before, he did not acknowledge her greeting. And here she realized that, perhaps, he had not changed much-that boy from back then.

"What did I steal?" he asked finally, daring her to show him the evidence.

In response, she moved close (mirroring the silent hunter that night, showing him that she could take vengeance) and, in a split second, had kissed his temple, then his collarbone. If he could, he didn't stop her.

"This is how he kissed me, before you killed him."

She had his full attention now. The fire died, being unattended. Madara was silence itself, blending into the dark night.

"Give that happiness back to me," Mito murmured.

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.

Finally, he spoke. "…You didn't love him," the Uchiha said, as if he had the fucking right to decide these things.

"I didn't, but I liked his kisses," Mito said leisurely. "What's wrong with that?"

His eyes were scornful. "Ha, you became just a woman after all. And now you're chasing after Hashirama, I see."

Mito felt like laughing, because it almost sounded like Uchiha was jealous. But it was not jealousy, and _she and Hashirama_ were not what the village people chose to see. "And that's where you're wrong. He is chasing me. Though, he is chasing an illusion of me. He believes I am light and lovely and would save his brother merely out of the inherent goodness of my heart."

Madara's brow wrinkled, then relaxed. "Hashirama… chases many illusions. We both know that."

She looked into his dark eyes. '_Yet here you are, chasing it as well_' was the unspoken comment hanging in the cold night air.

"Then what are you chasing?" she asked instead.

"I am not chasing an illusion," Madara told her, and his eyes turned the color of bloody flame. "My eyes are clear. For example, when I look at _you_, I don't see the illusion that he sees."

_Do you speak the truth?_

Mito tried not to look pleased, tried to keep her voice light, though she was mesmerized by the swirl of three commas. "What do you see?" she breathed.

"Someone trying to survive. Someone trying to protect the clan, and willing to do anything for it."

If there was a prize for being right, he had won it.

Mito didn't tell him, didn't let any sign show on her face, but Madara smiled darkly anyhow, as if he _had_ just won something.

He was fucking right. Something inside her rejoiced, and it was a bitter sort of happiness. His words thrilled the basest part of her, and she found herself wanting more.

Uchiha Madara grasped Mito's hand in his, and tugged forward.

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.

_tbc_


End file.
